Unlike California’s majestic rivers and massive dams and
conveyance systems, groundwater is out of sight and underground,
though no less plentiful. The state’s enormous cache of
underground water is a great natural resource and has contributed
to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and
leader in high-tech industries.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply. In an
average year, roughly 40 percent of California’s water supply
comes from groundwater.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 with the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local
and regional agencies to develop and implement sustainable
groundwater management plans with the state as the backstop.
On a small scale, aquifers — subsurface natural basins — have
been recharged with flood waters from extreme storms for
decades. Now, a new Department of Water Resources (DWR)
assessment shows how Flood Managed Aquifer Recharge, or
Flood-MAR, can help reduce flood risk and boost groundwater
supplies across large areas of land. … In partnership
with the Merced Irrigation District, Sustainable Conservation,
and others, DWR experts analyzed how this would work in the
Merced River —a 145-mile-long tributary of the San Joaquin
River. The Merced River, which flows from the Sierra
Nevada to the San Joaquin Valley, could be much more vulnerable
to heavy flooding as storms intensify.
Small Valley communities are drying up. The latest town to find
itself waterless is Tooleville, east of Exeter on Highway 65.
In the middle of July, with temperatures soaring and the
intense Valley summer in full swing, residents of the town
found the well they rely on was delivering just a dribble where
it was working at all. With the aid of Self-Help Enterprises,
the town is now dependent on a pair of water tanks and costly
daily deliveries of trucked-in water.
For four years, thousands of soil samples and paint chips taken
from homes, schools, parks and parkways near the former Exide
battery facility have been stored inside shipping containers at
a Superfund site. Without consulting local officials or
residents, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control
transported the samples to the Stringfellow facility, an Inland
Empire quarry that once served as an industrial dumping ground
— one that leaked toxic chemicals into groundwater and soil
over several decades.
The drought in the West and climate change have smaller cities
rethinking their economies, especially if their main business
is agriculture. On California’s Central Coast, one town is
trying to diversify beyond its main moneymaker – grapes and
wine. … Lynn Hamilton [a professor of agribusiness at
nearby Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo] says … “The attitude
here, it seems to be – until recently – that, oh, we’re just a
rainy season away from being saved. And I think people are now
starting to realize that that’s not true any longer.”
A proposed fee system to manage irrigated land in Madera County
has sparked a successful protest, leaving one groundwater
agency unfunded and at least one farmer claiming the process
was done with minimal notice. … Three newly formed
groundwater sustainable agencies — Chowchilla Subbasin, the
Madera Subbasin and the Delta Mendota Subbasin — are left with
no funding for four ongoing groundwater projects required under
California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. It’s the
County of Madera that oversees the land, said Stephanie
Anagnason, director of water and natural resources for Madera
County.
Drought cut short a pilot program to bring South Fork Kern
River water through Lake Isabella and down 60 miles to farmland
northwest of Bakersfield. Now, a raft of lawsuits could upend
the environmental impact report in support of the project,
which has been a goal of the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage
District since it bought the old Onyx Ranch in 2013. The
project was doomed from the start, said one board member of the
water district that led the lawsuit charge.
The forests and meadows of the Sierra Nevada, Coast Range, and
Cascade Mountains are the source waters for much of the
Sacramento River Basin and the State of California. Healthy
headwaters ensure increased water supply reliability and
reduced flooding risks, improved water quality, reduced impacts
from catastrophic wildfires, increased renewable energy
supplies, enhanced habitat, and improved response to climate
change and extreme weather.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority has signed an
agreement to spend $6,396,000 to buy the rights to 750
acre-feet of state water per year to import from southwestern
Kings County. A nonbinding letter of intent signed Tuesday and
obtained by the Daily Independent lays out the terms between
the IWVGA and an entity called Utica LJL, LLC to purchase water
assets. Utica LJL is in the early stages of developing a site
along Interstate 5 about four miles south of Kettleman City to
build gas stations, restaurants, motels, an industrial park,
and farmland.
The San Joaquin Valley is California’s agricultural heartland
and at the center of the state’s water challenges. As the
region brings its groundwater basins into balance under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), over half a
million acres of irrigated farmland may need to come out of
production. At a virtual event last week, PPIC researchers and
a panel of local experts moderated by Ellen Hanak, director of
the PPIC Water Policy Center, discussed how to manage this
massive transition while reaping the greatest benefits from
idled land and mitigating air quality concerns.
Drive by a flooded almond orchard in the countryside
surrounding Manteca, Ripon and Escalon and your first thought
might be outrage. After all, California is slipping
deeper into a third year of a devastating drought. Looks,
however, can be deceiving. What looks like a waste of
water is actually helping keep water flowing to your home to
wash clothes, drink, flush toilets, shower or bathe, and wash
dishes and such if you live in Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority in eastern Kern
County has signed a “letter of intent” to buy the rights to 750
acre feet of state water for $6,396,000 from a State Water
Project contractor in Kings County. The purchase is part of the
authority’s plan to bring that overdrafted groundwater basin
into balance. The seller is Utica J.L.J. LLC, which purchased
the Jackson Ranch and is developing a truck stop and industrial
center on 400 acres at Utica Avenue and Interstate 5, just
south of Kettleman City.
On January 28, 2022, the Department released eight Incomplete
determinations on groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs)
developed by local agencies to meet the requirements of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). These basins
were given 180 days to address deficiencies and resubmit their
revised GSPs to the Department for review. The revised
GSPs in response to the Incomplete determination have
been resubmitted to the Department and are now posted
on the DWR
SGMA Portal. These plans are open to public comment for 60
days after the posted date.
With typically arid springs and summers, droughts are normal in
California… but not at this intensity: Climate change is
intensifying drought across the state, which puts the state in
a precarious position that compromises water supplies for
drinking and agriculture, increases wildfire risk, and
threatens fish and wildlife. … We can adapt to future
droughts through reducing our water use and switching to more
sustainable water uses. We can expand our existing usage of
recycled water, replenish our groundwater aquifers and increase
our flexibility in crop and municipal uses.
Leasing for new oil and gas drilling on federal land in central
California is temporarily blocked under a
settlement announced Monday between the state and the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management. … Fracking is the process of
injecting a high-pressure mix of mostly water with some sand
and chemical additives into rock to create or expand fractures
that allow oil and gas to be extracted. It’s a controversial
practice due to concerns about the injected chemicals
contaminating groundwater.
When Maria Regalado Garcia tried to wash the dishes in her
California home one recent morning, only a trickle of water
emerged from the kitchen faucet. Other taps in her Tooleville
house in rural Tulare County ran similarly dry. … Garcia
and her neighbors, who intermittently lose tap water at home,
are among those most affected by a historic drought that’s
blanketed the West, scorched California and caused a growing
list of water troubles for residents and farmers.
After abundant rain and flooding in the Mississippi Valley and
other regions in 2019, drought returned to much of the United
States in 2021-22. From wet to dry, both extremes have
implications for soils and the crops they support. The opposing
extremes were detected by NASA satellites. But it was a novel
tool—the Soil Moisture Analytics (Crop-CASMA) product—that
integrated this satellite data into a format that was
particularly useful to people. With Crop-CASMA’s
high-resolution, timely information on soil moisture, farmers
and agriculture managers could track the areas of high and low
moisture more closely.
A state audit found that nearly one million Californians have
contaminated drinking water. The report found that 920,000
people could face health issues from unsafe drinking water. The
California State Auditor found there are 370 failing water
systems in California that are putting almost a million
residents at risk. … The audit criticizes the State
Water Resources Control Board for a lack of urgency in getting
funding to these smaller systems, which often rely on well
water.
Early one winter morning, as Brian Lilla was riding his bike
through Napa, California’s hills and meadows, he spotted
farmworkers driving ATVs through rows of vines. They hauled
huge canisters of the weedkiller Roundup. As the workers
sprayed vines, a chemical smell shot through the air.
… In Children of the Vine, the 54-year-old
documentary filmmaker explores the use of glyphosate from the
time Roundup hit the market in the 1970s to Monsanto’s creation
of “Roundup Ready” genetically modified seeds in the 1990s to
its present legal woes and shattered public trust. But even
now, with at least 20 countries having banned or
limited the use of the herbicide, Lilla was shocked to find out
how ubiquitous the chemical is in our daily lives, and how
trace amounts of glyphosate appears even in certified organic
foods and wine (which by definition are grown without
pesticides or herbicides).
California’s state auditor blasted the agency responsible for
helping poor communities fix their tainted water systems
Tuesday, saying the it has tied up the process in red tape and
forced nearly 1 million residents to wait months or years for
help. Acting State Auditor Michael Tilden said the State Water
Resources Control Board takes an average of 33 months to
approve grants and loans requested by these communities to
clean up water systems contaminated by excess amounts of
nitrate, arsenic and other dangerous chemicals.
… Nitrate, the result of farm fertilizer seeping into
the water supply, can cause numerous health issues for infants.
Excessive levels of arsenic can cause problems with skin and
circulatory systems, and elevate the risk of cancer.
The latest blow in an ongoing water war between two Kings
County agricultural titans may put control of the entire
region’s groundwater into state hands. The J.G. Boswell Farming
Company and Sandridge Partners, controlled by John Vidovich,
have been scuffling over water in court, on ditch banks and
even in the air with accusations on both sides of various types
of water skulduggery. On July 22, the Southwest Kings
Groundwater Sustainability Agency, controlled by Vidovich,
voted to approve the region’s groundwater plan subject to an
addendum that state representatives warned — during the meeting
– could nullify the plan and lead to state control over
groundwater.
When Elana O’Brien decided to eliminate the front lawn outside
her Pasadena home, she had three goals: water conservation,
increased privacy and a view more natural than a city street
and the seasonal decorations in her neighbor’s yard. Smothering
her 850-square-foot lawn with cardboard and mulch — a.k.a.
sheet mulching — wasn’t enough, O’Brien said. She wanted to add
some height and contour to her yard, and she found the answer
with — literally — a lot of sticks and stones, using a process
known as hugelkultur. … The idea behind hugelkultur is
that the logs help collect and retain moisture and encourage
the growth of beneficial microorganisms in the soil …
Three San Joaquin Valley water agencies are gearing up to spend
$10 million each in grant funding from the state Department of
Conservation to retire or repurpose farmland. Valley agencies
that have received grants so far include the Kaweah Delta Water
Conservation District, Pixley Irrigation District Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (GSA) and Madera County.
… Estimates are that 100,000 acres of farmland will need
to be taken out of production if the subbasin is to comply with
state law and reach groundwater sustainability, said Reyn
Akiona, watershed coordinator for the Tule subbasin.
As I drive across my family’s farm in the San Joaquin Valley,
it feels as if I’m traveling on a chessboard. I cross one
square with crops and then another without crops — our fields
that must lay fallow. Our farm’s crops have been decimated by
the drought. Last year, reduced water deliveries in the state
led to 395,000 acres of cropland being idled, according to UC
Merced researchers, and about 8,750 agricultural workers lost
their jobs. … Without enough water, farmers in
California can’t survive. The state’s aging water supply
infrastructure has not kept up with the growth of the
state. -Written by Joe L. Del Bosque, CEO and president
of the family-owned Del Bosque Farms in the San Joaquin
Valley.
Residents in the Merced County town of Ballico are advised not
to drink the water after a mechanical failure at the well which
supplies the community. According to Tricia Wathen, section
chief of the State Water Resources Control Board Division of
Drinking Water Central California, the board was notified
Saturday that a Ballico Community Services District well failed
on Friday afternoon. Wathen said the problem is believed to be
mechanical, and is expected to be repaired once parts are
available. … The community worked with Merced County Office
of Emergency Services and a local school to connect water to
the system from the school’s irrigation well.
The ink is barely dry on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act and here comes more legislation to redo what has been the
most significant change in California water law in over 100
years. The California Department of Water Resources has not
finished evaluating Groundwater Sustainability Plans submitted
by local agencies under SGMA, which established a cooperative
framework to protect California’s groundwater resources. But
already legislation—Assembly Bill 2201 by Steve Bennett,
D-Ventura—seeks to change SGMA in ways that would bring
unnecessary confusion and disruption into the
process. -Written by Danny Merkley, director of water
resources for the California Farm Bureau; and Jack
Gualco, president of The Gualco Group Inc.
[W]hen you’re driving down the highway in Southern Arizona,
sometimes you’ll drive right through a field so green, you’d
think you were in Coastal California. … [Anastasia
Rabin's] well hasn’t run dry yet, but several of her neighbors
and many people in the region where she lives have had to pay
tens of thousands of dollars to deepen their wells or dig new
ones altogether. … Many in the area put the blame
on a dairy and out-of-state pecan farmers moving in and using
the land in ways it wasn’t meant to be used. Mostly, they’re
using lots of water, digging deeper than the residents and
small farmers who were already here, and literally changing the
landscape.
Millions of highly skilled environmental engineers stand ready
to make our continent more resilient to climate change. They
restore wetlands that absorb carbon, store water, filter
pollution and clean and cool waters for salmon and trout. They
are recognized around the world for helping to reduce wildfire
risk. Scientists have valued their environmental services at
close to $179,000 per square mile annually. And they work for
free. Our ally in mitigating and adapting to climate change
across the West could be a paddle-tailed rodent: the North
American beaver. -Written by Chris Jordan, mathematical biology
and systems monitoring program manager at NOAA Fisheries’
Northwest Fisheries Science Center; and Emily Fairfax, an
assistant professor of environmental science and resource
management at Cal State Channel Islands.
Exeter officially put an end to their drinking water warning
after swapping well 6’s production that included high nitrate
levels with well 9 that was recently rehabilitated. The
drinking water warning due to high levels of nitrates from well
6 in Exeter has been lifted. Women who are pregnant and infants
could safely drink the city’s water as of July 14, ending the
two month warning period. The warning was lifted after the
city’s alternative well – well 9 – became fully operational. It
had been undergoing rehabilitation work to prepare for high
demand in the summer months. While well 9 was offline, all
other wells had to remain online in order to meet peak hour
water pressure demands.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires
groundwater users to bring their basins into balance over the
next two decades. In the San Joaquin Valley, this will mean
taking more than 500,000 acres of agricultural land out of
intensive irrigated production. Among other issues, this could
potentially lead to air quality impacts if the lands become new
sources of dust, especially windblown dust, which can have
numerous negative short- and long-term health and environmental
impacts. In addition, the changing climate may exacerbate risks
as warmer temperatures can dry out soils and increase dust
emissions.
The Board of Supervisors will consider new standards for well
permits at their meeting Aug. 9 in response to California case
law to protect rivers and other “public trust resources,”
according to a July 11 press release. The county will hold a
public hearing on the proposed amendment to the county’s well
ordinance, which would create new guidelines for Permit
Sonoma’s evaluation of environmental impact to drill new or
replacement groundwater wells. The ordinance may effect
approximately one-third of well permit applications sent to
Permit Sonoma and new wells may be subject to hundreds of
dollars in fees and new equipment based on the proposal.
The rollout of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act (SGMA) is altering the state’s agricultural landscape. As
groundwater sustainability measures are implemented and water
scarcity increases, at least half a million acres are projected
to come out of irrigated production in the San Joaquin Valley,
the state’s agricultural heartland. Rather than widespread land
idling—which comes with unintended consequences such as dust,
weeds, pests, and soil degradation—a switch from summer
irrigated crops to winter crops produced with limited water
(including winter cereals and forage crops, among others) might
keep some of this land in production.
Groundwater levels are dropping and domestic wells throughout
the San Joaquin Valley are going dry as California’s third year
of drought grinds on. That includes entire towns, such as East
Orosi and Tooleville in Tulare County, which both went dry last
week. It’s bad. But it may get worse. Area water suppliers are
“locking down” and may not have enough to share, equipment is
in short supply and so are people to get the water to those in
need.
A company seeks to drill two very deep wells in Stanislaus
County to capture some of the carbon dioxide involved in
climate change. Aemetis Inc. would sink the wells at its
ethanol plant in Keyes and another coming soon to Riverbank.
They would be perhaps 8,000 feet deep, far below groundwater
sources, and would store close to 40 million tons of compressed
gas over 20 years. The $250 million project would put the
county at the forefront of the effort to sequester CO2 that
otherwise would trap heat in the atmosphere. Experts say
climate change is already disrupting agriculture, raising sea
levels and making storms and wildfires more extreme.
A new nonprofit is emerging along the Central Coast with its
sights set on ensuring clean, safe drinking water and access to
waterways for all, particularly those in disadvantaged
communities. The fledgling nonprofit is called Waterkeeper
Monterey, formerly known as Monterey Coastkeeper. Monterey
Waterkeeper’s Executive Director Chelsea Tu … told the Herald
this week that Waterkeeper will be working with the State Water
Resources Control Boards, often just called Water Boards, to
limit levels of contaminants in drinking water, mostly in well
water that doesn’t have the benefit of municipal treatment
facilities that urban areas of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties
have.
The town of Tooleville in Tulare County is once again without
water. The town, which has struggled for years with dropping
groundwater levels and contamination issues, saw its wells dry
up over the weekend. On July 15, residents called
nonprofit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability
reporting very low water pressure and some with no water at
all, said Elvia Olea, policy advocate for Leadership
Counsel. This is the second town in Tulare County to lose
water this summer. East Orosi, about 30 miles north of
Tooleville, was without water for 24 hours when one of its two
wells went down July 12, according to news reports. A pump was
installed and restored water to East Orosi.
Growing up in Dinuba, my family and I worried about whether the
water coming out of our tap was safe to drink. We knew that our
groundwater was likely contaminated by nitrates and other toxic
chemicals from agriculture. Like many other immigrant families,
we would fill up three 5-gallon containers of water at a
vending machine station on a weekly basis. To this day, we
still don’t trust that the water in our home is safe to
drink. -Written by Emmanuel Agraz Torres, an ambassador
with California Environmental Voters Education Fund and a
student at California State University, Fresno.
To be clear, there are good reasons to end construction of new
gas stations, which, beyond fueling climate change, also have a
tendency to become costly environmental cleanup sites
themselves. The underground storage tanks they use can
contaminate soil and groundwater and pose risks to drinking
water supplies for years after they close. A statewide 2021
assessment by the State Water Resources Control Board found 136
improperly abandoned underground fuel storage tank facilities,
many of them old gas stations, including a dozen in
disadvantaged communities and within 1,000 feet of a municipal
water supply well.
Picture the ocean shore, but underground, there’s a line where
the freshwater and the seawater meet, called the salt line.
This salt line moves with the tides. But rising sea levels and
an increase of people living by the shore tapping into
freshwater underground can also pull more saltwater from the
ocean toward the land. … [P]laces all around the U.S. and the
world are now starting to study this problem. … California is
going through drought conditions. Aridification refers to the
climate getting drier in the long term, not just in seasonal
drought cycles.
Three San Joaquin Valley water agencies are gearing up to spend
$10 million each in grant funding from the state Department of
Conservation to retire or repurpose farmland. Valley agencies
that received grants so far include the Kaweah Delta Water
Conservation District, Pixley Irrigation District Groundwater
Sustainbility Agency (GSA) and Madera County. SJV Water will
look at how each agency plans to use its $10 million in
separate articles.
After a long back-and-forth on Tuesday afternoon, all but one
Mendocino County supervisor approved a draft of a water hauling
ordinance created by concerned community members. The
ordinance draft will move on to the planning commission for
review, despite lingering questions around how to fund it.
Board Chair Ted Williams voted against the ordinance because of
those concerns. The ordinance’s purpose is to protect the
county’s groundwater resources by regulating the sale and
transport of groundwater from private wells.
There is a state mandate to consolidate [small] water
systems with larger nearby communities by 2024. But that wasn’t
soon enough for East Orosi, an unincorporated Tulare County
hamlet southeast of Fresno. The water went off Tuesday
afternoon. A temporary fix allowed the water to run
sporadically on Wednesday. By then, a family had lost their
home to a fire they had no water to fight. Children had spent a
day scrambling to keep pets and livestock from dying. And in
this community that already depends on bottled water for
drinking, everyone knew the taps could soon go dry again.
To survive this climate-changed future, the state needs to
capture those torrents—and the tools to do so are right beneath
our feet. In California, hidden under the ground are aquifers
that have the capacity to store an estimated 1.3 billion
acre-feet of water—26 times all of the state’s reservoirs
combined. All California needs to do is guide the floods caused
by torrential rainfall into the ground, instead of out to sea.
… Here’s the problem: We don’t know where to build this
infrastructure. Because we can’t see groundwater, our
understanding of it—where it is, which direction it flows, and
how it connects to the surface—is limited.
He walked to and fro, holding the rods parallel to the ground
and several inches apart. Every once in a while, the rods
crossed. In each spot where they did, he bent down and planted
a little blue flag and said that’s where I’d likely find my bad
pipe. “I thought that was voodoo,” I said politely. … Well,
this piqued my interest, and I began to do a little digging of
my own. Is there anything to dowsing, and if so, might a
battalion of dowsers help get us through the drought by
identifying underground aquifers and streams? -Written by Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times
columnist.
Los Angeles County has 25 state parks, recreation areas,
historical sites and beaches. There are 24 more in Orange and
San Diego counties. But in the eight counties of the San
Joaquin Valley, which stretches from the Tehachapis to the
northern edge of San Joaquin County, there are only 15 state
sites, and only five of those are state parks. That is
about to change. In the budget just signed by Gov. Gavin
Newsom, enough money has been dedicated to start creating
California’s first new state park since Fort Ord Dunes in
Monterey County joined the system more than a decade ago. -Written by Julie Rentner, president of River
Partners, a nonprofit conservation organization; and
Assemblymember Adam Gray, a
Democrat representing Merced County and part of
Stanislaus County, including Dos Rios Ranch.
Cities and agricultural operations across the West put intense
pressure on groundwater supplies. In some rural regions, few
rules govern how, when and how much water can be pumped. That’s
true in rural southern Arizona, where wells are drying up as
cities grow, large farms move in and the megadrought continues.
… [Tara] Morrow and her neighbors are seeing the water
wells they use for their basic needs – cooking, cleaning and
showering – dry up as large farming operations move in and have
to drill deeper for groundwater.
Ute Mountain Ute irrigation manager Michael Vicenti looked out
from his reservation — toward the Navajos’ sacred “winged rock”
and across the arid Southwest — then focused in front of his
feet on three-foot-high stalks of blue corn. They stood
straight. But these growing stalks, established on one inch of
water per week, now would require twice that much. And Vicenti
winced, confiding doubts about whether Ute farming can endure
in a hotter, drier world. Each evening he calls operators of
McPhee Reservoir to set the flow into a 39-mile clay canal —
the Utes’ only source of water — and makes a difficult choice.
Either he saves scarce water or he saves corn.
The governor of our state and the state legislature are getting
into the act of exercising never-before-seen public control of
privately owned groundwater wells. Assemblyman Steve Bennett
(D-Ventura) and representatives from Community Water Center
(CWC) are sponsoring legislation that would change the way new
and expanded water wells are approved in California, and
focusing on areas that are experiencing rapid decline in
groundwater reserves. … Bennett’s bill, AB 2201, took a step
forward last week as it survived a fight in a California state
Senate committee. -Written by Jim Shields, editor and publisher of the
Mendocino County Observer and district manager of the
Laytonville County Water District.
In a significant course-correction, a Ninth Circuit panel
recently revisited its prior opinion in California River Watch
v. City of Vacaville, (14 F.4th 1076 (9th Cir. 2021)
(“Vacaville I”)), where the Court previously held the City of
Vacaville (“City”) could be liable for transporting a solid
waste (hexavalent chromium) in its drinking water supply simply
due to that contaminant being present in groundwater withdrawn
for water supply purposes. On a denial of a rehearing en banc,
the same three-judge panel who issued the Vacaville I opinion
issued a new order and opinion withdrawing and superseding the
former opinion, now affirming summary judgment in favor of the
City.
Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency officials announced Tuesday a
court has awarded the agency $65.9 million for cleanup of local
groundwater contamination from the Whittaker-Bermite
site. According to officials, the most recent news
is the latest in a series of legal actions and settlements as a
result of the Whittaker-Bermite site being used as a former
munition testing and manufacturing site, resulting in
contamination issues, which include perchlorate. Since
2007, when the last multi-million-dollar settlement was agreed
to, more wells have become impacted by perchlorate and
groundwater contaminants, and as a result the impacted wells
needed to be removed from service until they could be treated.
Petaluma residents neighboring a planned groundwater well
project in the Oak Hill Park area are asking city leaders for
more transparency and review before approving its construction,
following concerns that the area’s foundation may be too
fragile. The Oak Hill Municipal Well Project would install a
well on a 5.58-acre, city-owned property at 35 Park Avenue, as
city officials look to offset the need for purchased water and
increase the reliability and diversity of local water supplies
during the ongoing drought. But neighbors are concerned the
well will have a negative impact on the environment and make
way for sinkholes.
Farmers in southern Tulare County on June 30 soundly rejected a
proposed land fee that would have helped pay a lump sum
settlement of $125 million toward fixing the Friant-Kern
Canal, which has sunk because of excessive groundwater pumping.
The Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency agreed in
2020 to pay a portion of the cost to repair the canal to Friant
Water Authority. … The settlement agreement between
Eastern Tule and Friant laid out two payment options. The GSA
would either pay a lump sum of $125 million by the end of 2022,
or $200 million over the next decade through pumping fees
charged to its farmers.
Rhonda Nyseth’s well dried up on Sept. 15, 2021, nine months
after she bought her house in Klamath Falls. … Last
summer, she helped oversee the distribution of more than 100
water tanks, each holding 500-gallons, to residents in Klamath
County with empty wells. Neighbors saw their wells dry up, but
she thought if hers still had water by Sept. 1, after the heavy
agricultural irrigation season, she wouldn’t be personally
affected by the ongoing drought. Just a few weeks later, she
was on the free water delivery list. She is among hundreds
of people relying on weekly water deliveries through a state
and county water program established to deal with the county’s
third year of drought.
The next six weeks, California pistachios will be on close
watch around how much–if any, the current drought in the state
is affecting its growth or “nut fill.” … So while some
growers are located in areas with good groundwater and/or are
receiving some supply of surface water, others have zero
surface water and also limited sources of groundwater.
… At the same time, the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) is starting to be implemented. This
legislation, which passed in 2014, requires that all
groundwater basins in California be sustainable and agencies
were formed to ensure compliance with the act.
On a sunny morning in southern Arizona this spring, members of
the Arizona Water Defenders gathered at a park in the small
town of Douglas to answer residents’ questions about water —
and to collect signatures for a citizen-led ballot initiative
that would, for the first time, regulate the region’s aquifer.
…The Arizona Water Defenders, a grassroots group, was formed
in March 2021 by southeastern Arizona residents who were
concerned about local wells going dry and increasingly visible
ground fissures and land subsidence. … [I]n recent years, as
large-scale dairy and nut producers have bought land in the
area and drilled deep new wells, water table drawdown has
become more noticeable and worrisome.
Monterey Peninsula water officials are reporting that not only
did they meet the obligation to provide the agreed-upon amount
of water from the Pure Water Monterey water recycling project,
they were able to bank more than 100 acre-feet in groundwater
reserve. Pure Water Monterey — a project of Monterey One Water,
the area’s wastewater service provider — takes recycled water
that has been treated to a potable level and in a joint effort
with the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District injects
it into the Seaside Groundwater Basin for later
extraction.
A plant that removes salt from water is now running in Menifee,
giving officials another tool to reduce their reliance on
imported water as California’s drought continues. The Eastern
Municipal Water District opened its third groundwater
desalination plant, the Perris II Groundwater Desalination
Facility, on Thursday, June 23. The plant will remove salt
from underground water basins tapped by wells in Perris —
nearly 5.4 million gallons of water per day, according to the
water district.
More than 900 hazardous sites — power plants, sewage treatment
plants, refineries, cleanup areas and other facilities — across
California could be inundated with ocean water and groundwater
by the end of the century, according to climate scientists at
UCLA and UC Berkeley. … [UCLA’s Lara] Cushing and UC
Berkeley’s Rachel Morello-Frosch, both environmental health
scientists, last year launched an interactive tool, Toxic
Tides, mapping California’s hazardous sites that could be
inundated by sea level rise. … The researchers also used
federal groundwater data to examine how rising ocean water
would drive freshwater up from the ground.
Due to the lack of surface water available in the region this
year, the Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency is currently
forecasting that fall groundwater elevations in Yolo County
will be close to the 1976-77 drought. The 1976-77 drought is
the most significant drought on record for groundwater levels
and is used by the Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency (YGSA) as a
minimum threshold for the groundwater sustainability plan.
In a hearing Tuesday, the State Environmental Commission
affirmed a contested water pollution control permit for the
Thacker Pass lithium mine, a procedural step forward for a
project that has faced concerns from several environmental
groups, Native American tribes and local ranchers. The
state permit, issued by the Nevada Division of Environmental
Protection in February, would allow the mine to proceed if it
meets certain requirements. Among those requirements are
measures to prevent tailings, the byproducts of ore, from
contaminating the environment, should water seep through the
waste materials, which will contain chemicals used to process
and extract lithium.
California has seen a lot of proposals to reduce carbon
emissions; now a plan to scrub existing pollution is moving
forward in the Legislature. Assembly Bill 2649, which just
passed the State Senate Environmental Quality Committee on
Wednesday, sets a big goal: to remove 60 million metric tons of
carbon from the atmosphere per year by 2030, all by harnessing
nature. Ellie Cohen, CEO of the Climate Center, a statewide
advocacy group, said the plan to sequester more carbon in the
ground will slow climate change and help the environment. “It
helps us to hold more water when it does rain,” Cohen outlined.
“It helps to replenish groundwater. It supports biodiversity
…”
On Wednesday, crews began using a soil vapor extraction system
to remove the pollutants from the soil under downtown
Delano. … “We are also concerned that there is PCE
in the top layers of the groundwater and that is also at
extremely high levels, thousands of times above the state
standards. So the concern is that if it does reach the
municipal water supply, that’s going to be very hard to remove,
and very dangerous for folks and extremely expensive,” said
[Ingrid Brostrom, the assistant director for Center on Race,
Poverty & the Environment].
A bill which would change the way groundwater wells are
approved in California took a step forward Wednesday as it
survived a fight in a California state Senate committee. The
legislation was introduced by Assemblymember Steve Bennett,
Democrat from Ventura, and would change the way new and
expanded water wells are approved in California; focusing on
areas that are experiencing rapid decline in groundwater
reserves.
Santa Barbara County officials on Tuesday celebrated the
completion of a project that will prevent 84 million gallons of
water from being pumped every year from the Santa Maria Valley
Groundwater Basin. Officials gathered at Waller Park at 8:30
a.m. to cut a ribbon signifying the completion of the system
that will use treated wastewater to irrigate the county-owned
park at the southern edge of Santa Maria. Each year, the county
has pumped about 84 million gallons of water — about 300,000
gallons per day — from its on-site well to irrigate the 65
acres of turf at the park, said Scott McGolpin, director of the
County Public Works Department.
A California Court of Appeal held that the EIR for a public
water authority’s river diversion and water storage project
adequately described the unadjudicated waters to be diverted
and adequately analyzed impacts to water rights and groundwater
supply. Buena Vista Water Storage District v. Kern Water
Bank Authority 76 Cal. App. 5th 576 (2022). Until 2010,
the Kern River had been designated by the State Water Resources
Control Board as a fully appropriated stream, and only those
who held an appropriative water right could divert Kern River
water.
Last year, state legislators in California passed a law
requiring municipalities to separate organic food waste from
other trash. In tangible terms, that means composting is
mandated. The law also requires 20% of food that would
otherwise be sent to a landfill — like edible food thrown away
by a grocery store at the end of the day — be recovered for
human consumption by 2025. … Why was the mandate
passed? The mandate plays a big role in California’s
climate goals. Rotting food left in landfills creates methane,
which is a greenhouse gas. … Compost is particularly
good at retaining water, which could help California farmers
during times of drought.
Several weeks after issuing a nitrate warning for groundwater,
the city of Exeter is still coming up dry on
solutions. With their only alternative well undergoing
repairs and tests, Exeter has kept well 6 – the well testing at
11 parts per million (ppm) for nitrates – in production.
Municipal wells are allowed to test up to 10 ppm for nitrates
according to state mandates. At 11 ppm cities are required to
issue notices that the water could be dangerous for infants and
women who are pregnant.
As the State of California faces a record drought, ocean
desalination has been highlighted as a potentially more
reliable alternative to imported water. Following the
California Coastal Commission’s (CCC) unanimous vote to deny
permits for the Brookfield-Poseidon Desalination plant in
Huntington Beach last month, the South Coast Water District
(SCWD) is working to obtain all major permits for its own
desalination plant near Doheny by the end of the year. The
local water district is looking to produce up to five million
gallons of potable drinking water a day by 2027 through its
proposed Doheny Ocean Desalination project.
Groundwater in the Sonoma Valley basin has declined
approximately 900 acres of water per year from 2012 to 2018,
fueled in part by the drought and a “general upward trend in
groundwater use” … Streams and small ponds have dried up
during stretches of drought in recent years. The largest
declines in groundwater can be seen in the areas of the El
Verano and Eighth Street East … where a deep aquifer is
losing water quicker than other parts of the region. The
deep aquifer is of concern because it takes longer to recharge
than shallow ones.
Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) today celebrated the
opening of its new groundwater desalination facility, which
will provide additional local water supply reliability to its
service area for future generations. The Perris II Desalination
Facility is EMWD’s third groundwater desalter and will provide
enough water for more than 15,000 households each year through
its reverse osmosis treatment process. The facility is located
in Menifee, adjacent to the existing Menifee I and Perris I
desalters.
In a complete turnaround from its stance earlier this week,
Kern County late Thursday dropped its requirement that
groundwater agencies make certain findings about proposed new
agricultural wells before it would consider issuing permits for
those wells. The situation had reached a boiling point in the
local ag community as the Kern County Environmental Health
Department had not issued a single permit for a new or
replacement ag well since April 6. The department has 16
pending ag well applications.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
Explore the Sacramento River and its tributaries through a scenic
landscape while learning about the issues associated with a
key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Travel along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand about one
of the nation’s largest and most expensive river restoration
projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
An online
short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by University of California, Davis and
several other organizations in cooperation with the Water
Education Foundation, will be held May 12, 19,
26 and June 2, 16 from 9 a.m. to noon.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This tour guided participants on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
The San Joaquin Valley has a big
hill to climb in reaching groundwater sustainability. Driven by
the need to keep using water to irrigate the nation’s breadbasket
while complying with California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, people throughout the valley are looking for
innovative and cost-effective ways to manage and use groundwater
more wisely. Here are three examples.
Groundwater provides about 40
percent of the water in California for urban, rural and
agricultural needs in typical years, and as much as 60 percent in
dry years when surface water supplies are low. But in many areas
of the state, groundwater is being extracted faster than it can
be replenished through natural or artificial means.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Since 1997, more than 430 engineers,
farmers, environmentalists, lawyers, and others have graduated
from our William R. Gianelli Water Leaders program. We’ve
developed a new alumni network
webpage to help program participants connect and keep in
touch.
An
online short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by UC Davis and several other organizations in
cooperation with the Water Education Foundation, will be
held May 21 and 28, June 4, 18, and 25 from 9 a.m. to noon.
The bill is coming due, literally,
to protect and restore groundwater in California.
Local agencies in the most depleted groundwater basins in
California spent months putting together plans to show how they
will achieve balance in about 20 years.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Our Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the workshop was held as an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday, April 23.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
The Water Education Foundation’s Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the one-day workshop held on Feb. 20, 2020 covered the latest on the most compelling issues in California water.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
A diverse roster of top
policymakers and water experts are on the
agenda for the Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit. The conference, Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning, will feature compelling conversations
reflecting on upcoming regulatory deadlines and efforts to
improve water management and policy in the face of natural
disasters.
Tickets for the Water Summit are sold out, but by joining the waitlist we can
let you know when spaces open via cancellations.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
California experienced one of the
most deadly and destructive wildfire years on record in 2018,
with several major fires occurring in the wildland-urban
interface (WUI). These areas, where communities are in close
proximity to undeveloped land at high risk of wildfire, have felt
devastating effects of these disasters, including direct impacts
to water infrastructure and supplies.
One panel at our 2019 Water
Summit Oct. 30 in Sacramento will feature speakers
from water agencies who came face-to-face with two major fires:
The Camp Fire that destroyed most of the town of Paradise in
Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire in the Southern
California coastal mountains. They’ll talk about their
experiences and what lessons they learned.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
Atmospheric rivers, the narrow bands
of moisture that ferry precipitation across the Pacific Ocean to
the West Coast, are necessary to keep California’s water
reservoirs full.
However, some of them are dangerous because the extreme rainfall
and wind can cause catastrophic flooding and damage, much
like what happened in 2017 with Oroville Dam’s spillway.
Learn the latest about atmospheric river research and forecasting
at our 2019 Water
Summit on Oct. 30 in Sacramento, where
prominent research meteorologist Marty Ralph will give the
opening keynote.
With a key deadline for the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in January, one of the
featured panels at our Oct.
30thWater
Summit will focus on how regions around California
are crafting groundwater sustainability plans and working on
innovative ways to fill aquifers.
The theme for this year’s Water Summit, “Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning,” reflects critical upcoming events in California
water, including the imminent Jan. 31, 2020 deadline for
groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) in high- and
medium-priority basins.
Our event calendar is an excellent
resource for keeping up with water events in California and the
West.
Groundwater is top of mind for many water managers as they
prepare to meet next January’s deadline for submitting
sustainability plans required under California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act. We have several upcoming featured
events listed on our calendar that focus on a variety of relevant
groundwater topics:
Registration opens today for the
Water Education Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit, set for Oct. 30 in Sacramento. This year’s
theme, Water Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,
reflects fast-approaching deadlines for the State Groundwater
Management Act as well as the pressing need for new approaches to
water management as California and the West weather intensified
flooding, fire and drought. To register for this can’t-miss
event, visit our Water Summit
event page.
Registration includes a full day of discussions by leading
stakeholders and policymakers on key issues, as well as coffee,
materials, gourmet lunch and an outdoor reception by the
Sacramento River that will offer the opportunity to network with
speakers and other attendees. The summit also features a silent
auction to benefit our Water Leaders program featuring
items up for bid such as kayaking trips, hotel stays and lunches
with key people in the water world.
Summer is a good time to take a
break, relax and enjoy some of the great beaches, waterways and
watersheds around California and the West. We hope you’re getting
a chance to do plenty of that this July.
But in the weekly sprint through work, it’s easy to miss
some interesting nuggets you might want to read. So while we’re
taking a publishing break to work on other water articles planned
for later this year, we want to help you catch up on
Western Water stories from the first half of this year
that you might have missed.
Our 36th annual
Water Summit,
happening Oct. 30 in Sacramento, will feature the theme “Water
Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,” reflecting upcoming regulatory
deadlines and efforts to improve water management and policy in
the face of natural disasters.
The Summit will feature top policymakers and leading stakeholders
providing the latest information and a variety of viewpoints on
issues affecting water across California and the West.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Groundwater helped make Kern County
the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion
annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has
come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater
pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left
some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers
have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and
protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern
County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of Oroville Dam spillway
repairs.
One of our most popular events, our annual Water 101 Workshop
details the history, geography, legal and political facets
of water in California as well as hot topics currently facing the
state.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the
state, the one-day workshop on Feb. 7 gave attendees a
deeper understanding of the state’s most precious natural
resources.
Optional Groundwater Tour
On Feb. 8, we jumped aboard a bus to explore groundwater, a key
resource in California. Led by Foundation staff and groundwater
experts Thomas
Harter and Carl Hauge, retired DWR chief hydrogeologist, the
tour visited cities and farms using groundwater, examined a
subsidence measuring station and provided the latest updates
on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
More than a decade in the making, an
ambitious plan to deal with the vexing problem of salt and
nitrates in the soils that seep into key groundwater basins of
the Central Valley is moving toward implementation. But its
authors are not who you might expect.
An unusual collaboration of agricultural interests, cities, water
agencies and environmental justice advocates collaborated for
years to find common ground to address a set of problems that
have rendered family wells undrinkable and some soil virtually
unusable for farming.
As California embarks on its unprecedented mission to harness groundwater pumping, the Arizona desert may provide one guide that local managers can look to as they seek to arrest years of overdraft.
Groundwater is stressed by a demand that often outpaces natural and artificial recharge. In California, awareness of groundwater’s importance resulted in the landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 that aims to have the most severely depleted basins in a state of balance in about 20 years.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of repair efforts on the
Oroville Dam spillway.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Groundwater replenishment happens
through direct recharge and in-lieu recharge. Water used for
direct recharge most often comes from flood flows, water
conservation, recycled water, desalination and water
transfers.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Sinkholes are caused by erosion of
rocks beneath soil’s surface. Groundwater dissolves soft
rocks such as gypsum, salt and limestone, leaving gaps in the
originally solid structure. This is exacerbated when water is
acidic from contact with carbon dioxide or acid rain. Even
humidity can play a major role in destabilizing water
underground.
Irrigation is the artificial supply
of water to grow crops or plants. Obtained from either surface or groundwater, it optimizes
agricultural production when the amount of rain and where it
falls is insufficient. Different irrigation
systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but in
practical use are often combined. Much of the agriculture in
California and the West relies on irrigation.
The United States
Geographical Survey (USGS) defines freshwater as containing
less than 1,000 milligrams per liter dissolved solids. However,
500 milligrams per liter is usually the cutoff for municipal and
commercial use. Most of the Earth’s water is saline, 97.5
percent with only 2.5 percent fresh.
Springs are where groundwater becomes surface water, acting as openings
where subsurface water can discharge onto the ground or directly
into other water bodies. They can also be considered the
consequence of an overflowing
aquifer. As a result, springs often serve as headwaters to streams.
Potable water, also known as
drinking water, comes from surface and ground sources and is
treated to levels that that meet state and federal standards for
consumption.
Water from natural sources is treated for microorganisms,
bacteria, toxic chemicals, viruses and fecal matter. Drinking
raw, untreated water can cause gastrointestinal problems such as
diarrhea, vomiting or fever.
Extensometers are among the most valuable devices hydrogeologists
use to measure subsidence, but most people – even water
professionals – have never seen one. They are sensitive and
carefully calibrated, so they are kept under lock and key and are
often in remote locations on private property.
During our California
Groundwater Tour Oct. 5-6, you will see two types of
extensometers used by the California Department of Water
Resources to monitor changes in elevation caused by groundwater
overdraft.
Flowing into the heart of the Mojave Desert, the Mojave River
exists mostly underground. Surface channels are usually dry
absent occasional groundwater surfacing and flooding
from extreme weather events like El Niño.
Alluvium generally refers to the clay, silt, sand and gravel that
are deposited by a stream, creek or other water body.
Alluvium is found around deltas and rivers, frequently
making soils very fertile. Alternatively, “colluvium” refers to
the accumulation at the base of hills, brought there from runoff
(as opposed to a water body). The Oxnard Plain in Ventura
County is a visible alluvial plain, where floodplains have
drifted over time due to gradual deposits of alluvium, a feature
also present in Red Rock Canyon State Park in Kern County.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This issue looks at remote sensing applications and how satellite
information enables analysts to get a better understanding of
snowpack, how much water a plant actually uses, groundwater
levels, levee stability and more.
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled through Inland
Southern California to learn about the region’s efforts in
groundwater management, recycled water and other drought-proofing
measures.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled from the
Sacramento region to Napa Valley to view sites that explore
groundwater issues. Topics included groundwater quality,
overdraft and subsidence, agricultural use, wells, and regional
management efforts.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater is an in-depth,
easy-to-understand publication that provides background and
perspective on groundwater. The guide explains what groundwater
is – not an underground network of rivers and lakes! – and the
history of its use in California.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to
Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of
California water rights law available to non-lawyers, traces the
authority for water flowing in a stream or reservoir, from a
faucet or into an irrigation ditch through the complex web of
California water rights.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at California
groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by
local, regional and state management. For more background
information on groundwater please refer to the Foundation’s
Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater management and the extent to which stakeholders
believe more efforts are needed to preserve and restore the
resource.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
Newly elected to your local water board? Or city council? Or
state Legislature? This packet of materials provides you with the
valuable background information you need – and at a special
price!
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
desalination – an issue that is marked by great optimism and
controversy – and the expected role it might play as an
alternative water supply strategy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the Russian and
Santa Ana rivers – areas with ongoing issues not dissimilar to
the rest of the state – managing supplies within a lingering
drought, improving water quality and revitalizing and restoring
the vestiges of the native past.
This printed copy of Western Water examines California’s drought
– its impact on water users in the urban and agricultural sector
and the steps being taken to prepare for another dry year should
it arrive.
Statewide, groundwater provides about 30 percent of California’s
water supply, with some regions more dependent on it than others.
In drier years, groundwater provides a higher percentage of the
water supply. Groundwater is less known than surface water but no
less important. Its potential for helping to meet the state’s
growing water demand has spurred greater attention toward gaining
a better understanding of its overall value. This issue of
Western Water examines groundwater storage and its increasing
importance in California’s future water policy.
This issue of Western Water examines the issue of California
groundwater management, in light of recent attention focused on
the subject through legislative actions and the release of the
draft Bulletin 118. In addition to providing an overview of
groundwater and management options, it offers a glimpse of what
the future may hold and some background information on
groundwater hydrology and law.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This 7-minute DVD is designed to teach children in grades 5-12
about where storm water goes – and why it is so important to
clean up trash, use pesticides and fertilizers wisely, and
prevent other chemicals from going down the storm drain. The
video’s teenage actors explain the water cycle and the difference
between sewer drains and storm drains, how storm drain water is
not treated prior to running into a river or other waterway. The
teens also offer a list of BMPs – best management practices that
homeowners can do to prevent storm water pollution.
Fashioned after the popular California Water Map, this 24×36 inch
poster was extensively re-designed in 2017 to better illustrate
the value and use of groundwater in California, the main types of
aquifers, and the connection between groundwater and surface
water.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
Seawater intrusion can harm groundwater quality in a variety of
places, both coastal and inland, throughout California.
Along the coast, seawater intrusion into aquifers is connected to overdrafting of
groundwater. Additionally, in the interior, groundwater
pumping can draw up salty water from ancient seawater isolated in
subsurface sediments.
Overdraft occurs when, over a period of years, more water is
pumped from a groundwater basin than is replaced from all sources
– such as rainfall, irrigation water, streams fed by mountain
runoff and intentional recharge. [See also Hydrologic Cycle.]
While many of its individual aquifers are not overdrafted,
California as a whole uses more groundwater than is replaced.
The treatment of groundwater— the primary source of drinking
water and irrigation water in many parts of the United States —
varies from community to community, and even from well to well
within a city depending on what contaminants the water contains.
In California, one-half of the state’s population drinks water
drawn from underground sources [the remainder is provided by
surface water].
Groundwater management is recognized
as critical to supporting the long-term viability of California’s
aquifers and protecting the
nearby surface waters that are connected to groundwater.
California has considered, but not implemented, a comprehensive
groundwater strategy many
times over the last century.
One hundred years ago, the California Conservation Commission
considered adding groundwater regulation into the Water
Commission Act of 1913. After hearings were held, it was
decided to leave groundwater rights out of the Water Code.
California, like most arid Western states, has a complex system
of surface water rights
that accounts for nearly all of the water in rivers and streams.
Groundwater banking is a process of diverting floodwaters or
other surface water into
an aquifer where it can be
stored until it is needed later. In a twist of fate, the space
made available by emptying some aquifers opened the door for the
banking activities used so extensively today.
When multiple parties withdraw water from the same aquifer,
groundwater pumpers can ask the court to adjudicate, or hear
arguments for and against, to better define the rights that
various entities have to use groundwater resources. This is known
as groundwater adjudication. [See also California
water rights and Groundwater Law.]
California’s enormous cache of underground water is a great
natural resource and has contributed to the state becoming the
nation’s top agricultural producer and leader in high-tech
industries.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply.
For something so largely hidden from view, groundwater is an
important and controversial part of California’s water supply
picture. How it should be managed and whether it becomes part of
overarching state regulation is a topic of strong debate.
In early June, environmentalists and Delta water agencies sued
the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Kern
County Water Agency (KCWA) over the validity of the transfer of
the Kern Water Bank, a huge underground reservoir that supplies
water to farms and cities locally and outside the area. The suit,
which culminates a decade-long controversy involving multiple
issues of state and local jurisdictional authority, has put the
spotlight on groundwater banking – an important but controversial
water management practice in many areas of California.
Groundwater, out of sight and out of mind to most people, is
taking on an increased role in California’s water future.
Often overlooked and misunderstood, groundwater’s profile is
being elevated as various scenarios combine to cloud the water
supply outlook. A dry 2006-2007 water year (downtown Los Angeles
received a record low amount of rain), crisis conditions in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the mounting evidence of climate
change have invigorated efforts to further utilize aquifers as a
reliable source of water supply.
When you drink the water, remember the spring. – Chinese proverb
Water is everywhere. Viewed from outer space, the Earth radiates
a blue glow from the oceans that dominate its surface. Atop the
sea and land, huge clouds of water vapor swirl around the globe,
propelling the weather system that sustains life. Along the way,
water, which an ancient sage called “the noblest of elements,”
transforms from vapor to liquid and to solid form as it falls
from the atmosphere to the surface, trickles below ground and
ultimately returns skyward.
Traditionally treated as two separate resources, surface water
and groundwater are increasingly linked in California as water
leaders search for a way to close the gap between water demand
and water supply. Although some water districts have coordinated
use of surface water and groundwater for years, conjunctive use
has become the catchphrase when it comes to developing additional
water supply for the 21st century.
